


you began as someone else's symptom

by seinmit



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: A Tiny Bit of Blood from a Very Minor Injury, Belly Kink, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Lack of Communication, Light Angst, M/M, Mpreg, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Pregnant Steve Rogers, Sappy, Too Pregnant to Do Usual Activities, Urination but Undeserving of the Watersports Tag, baby bump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:21:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27751468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seinmit/pseuds/seinmit
Summary: Steve kept getting bigger and Bucky felt the weight of it.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 5
Kudos: 126
Collections: We <3 Bellies - Round 1





	you began as someone else's symptom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lionessvalenti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/gifts).



Steve was laughing, but Bucky listened to the wheeze in his lungs underneath it—his own laughter was too bright and tiny, echoing around them. His heart was pounding, and it was almost a relief when the laugh collapsed into a horrible, hacking cough. Without looking at Steve, a strained and false chuckle still aching in his own throat, he stood up to get himself a glass of water. He took a sip and then set it down next to Steve, making up something to fuss with on the other side of the room. 

He could still hear the coughing behind him when he woke up. 

“Bad dream?” Sam said. He was poking at his phone and Bucky was frozen still, rewinding his location, the year—he was in the habit of mentally tracing his steps at every new consciousness. He wondered if Sam listened to his breathing, too.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, and then cleared his throat. “I was imagining your face.” 

Sam rolled his eyes and didn’t bother to look up. Bucky didn’t blame him—it was a weak effort, and Sam was never inclined to kick a man when he was down. 

Bucky stood up and went toward the front of the quinjet. 

“Sit your ass down,” Natasha said, but he ignored her and slipped into the copilot’s seat. She raised her eyebrows at him. 

“I’m sitting,” he pointed out. “Do we have an ETA for—“

“I was thinking we could swing by Joburg.” Her voice was always so dry; Bucky could never read her. “Their jerky is better.“

He shoved her shoulder and she exaggerated her response, jostling the whole jet. 

“What the fuck, man.” Bucky heard the clatter of Sam’s phone flying out of his hand. 

“Control your boy,” Natasha said. 

“Since when did he become my boy?” 

“Steve didn’t ask _me_ to look after him.” 

“I kicked both your asses,” Bucky said. He could hear the glower in his own voice. “Multiple times.”

He got up to fish Sam’s phone out from where it had slid under the cockpit console. Natasha tried to jerk him around again, but he was braced enough he didn’t budge. 

“It makes it all the sadder how far you’ve fallen,” she said. Her voice was dry and insincere. Bucky’s flesh thumb ran over the uncracked glass of Sam’s phone before handing it back to him. He gave the conversation up, and planted himself back in his seat, closing his eyes. 

“How far along is he?” Sam asked. 

“38 weeks,” Bucky said. And two days, he didn’t add. 

He counted his own breathing. He had a feeling that the conversation wasn’t over, but if he could make like he was falling asleep—

“I bet he’s even bigger now,” Sam said. “He already was the size of a barn when I met him, you’d think he wouldn’t show as much as he has.“

Bucky felt his lips press into a line, which was more than enough tell for Sam to keep talking. 

“I bet he’s cranky—” 

“Please,” Bucky said. He didn’t like the naked pleading tone in his voice, but he couldn’t help it. He felt like he was vibrating out of his skin—he’d lost five pounds in the three weeks they’d been gone out of sheer nervous energy. He was well aware that Steve had probably gained around the same amount, if his third trimester pace was holding true. 

“Have you decided on a name yet?” Sam always thought they needed to talk more. 

“Sambelina,” Bucky said without any effort to hide his testiness. 

“Alright,” Sam said. Bucky found himself resenting the exasperated fondness in his voice, and the realization of that brought him up short. 

He opened his eyes. Sam was back looking at his phone. 

“Want to come over for dinner tomorrow? If Steve’s alright with it. Both of you.” He knew Natasha was listening. 

“I was planning on just showing up,” Natasha said. “So you can spare yourself the asking, if you want.” 

Bucky snorted and relaxed into his seat. He wondered if he could adopt some of her cheerful indifference to Steve’s attempts to hide. When Steve was a third the size, he was apparently much more effective at exerting his will—maybe his size and strength actually lessoned the impart of his prickly self-protectiveness, made it seem faintly ridiculous to them. Bucky, on the other hand, wasn’t sure he could shake the habits learned a long time ago to protect Steve’s pride. 

He sighed and let his eyes close again. It would be easier when he could see Steve, when he could touch him. Neither of them were any good at phone calls.

***

Bucky unlocked their apartment and let himself in quietly, grateful for his habits of stealth when he saw Steve sleeping on the couch. He was mostly upright, head leaning back and revealing the long column of his neck. One sneaker was on his foot, laces untied, but the other one was dangling out of his lax hand, resting on the cushion beside him.

He was snoring, lightly, mouth open. His skin seemed too pale, stretched over his flesh, but he wasn’t skinny—in fact, he had clearly gained a significant amount of weight in the couple weeks Bucky had been gone. 

His shirt was riding up, revealing a stretch of pale skin on his navel that seemed flushed against the white fabric. Bucky could see the filigree of veins underneath his skin and the faint protuberance of his belly button underneath the shirt. 

Bucky’s chest felt as tight as Steve’s stomach, straining to hold something growing in. He stared, greedy, and heard the sound of his arm recalibrating from the repressed desire to touch. 

He could smell Steve’s sweat even from across the room—it was the height of summer, and neither of them liked the powdery artifice of contemporary deodorant. Bucky licked his lips, and even though it was his own skin, he imagined it was Steve’s—he could almost feel the warm weight of his stomach underneath his mouth, the soft divot of skin between groin and stomach. The way he’d have to use pressure to dig in there, make his place underneath where his kid was growing, and smother himself in Steve’s growing body. 

The thought of it gathered between his own legs and he could feel his dick get heavy with it, pulling him down and keeping him there, staring—he wanted, so badly. He fucking _yearned_ in a way that he thought he had left behind somewhere during the war, when they’d gotten over themselves and found touches even if there couldn’t be words. 

He imagined dropping to his knees in front of Steve and the way the span of his belly would dwarf even Bucky’s big hands, but—

The laces, tangled and undone. Steve maybe had been getting ready to go out, coming to meet him. Bucky shoved down his lust for a second and caught the faint frown twisting Steve’s lips, and the heavy heat of attraction shifted to something closer to shame. 

Steve wouldn’t want Bucky to be a witness to any struggles. Bucky knew that better than he knew most things—before he even remembered the details of harsh words and stupid arguments, he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to help Steve unless expressly asked for it, and he should do everything in his power to prevent Steve from having to ask. 

Bucky bit his lip. His teeth tugged off some dry skin in a quick flare of pain. And then he turned around and left.

***

The image of Steve sleeping on the couch stayed with Bucky for the rest of the afternoon. It chased him into the shops, where he bought some shirts that might fit his growing belly better, and some cocoa butter cream to rub on his strained skin, and a packet of the British cookies with orange jelly that they’d both fallen in love with. He found himself buying comfortable sandals with sturdy soles, the sort of shoes that Steve could slip on without even looking at them—and then, arms laden with bags, he went shopping longer to disguise what he had already bought.

He had missed Birnin Zana. He had never wanted to leave it, even temporarily, but when the need for the mission rose, he volunteered before Steve even had to turn it down. A few months ago, Steve would have gone—but it was his third trimester. They didn’t have to talk about it for the truth of his body to make things apparent. 

By the time he made his way home, the sun was setting and the background noise of the city had fully shifted from workday bustle to evening pleasure.

He hummed along to a griot who was singing on their street corner, and shifted his bags so that he could swipe his kimoyo beads on the reader to leave him a tip. 

There was a moment of juggling with his purchases at their apartment door before he heard movement inside. The shuffling of Steve moving toward the door made him smile, and he waited to be let in. 

It took long enough for Steve to get there that Bucky could have managed to do it himself, but he was grateful to wait and Steve’s big smile made it even better. 

“Souvenirs?” Steve said, instead of hello, at the sight of Bucky as encumbered as he was. Awake, Bucky could see the softness in his face, the slight pudge underneath his skin and the way his cheeks folded from his smile. 

“Hi,” Bucky said. “I missed you.” 

Steve laughed, a little breathless. Bucky’s ears couldn’t help but catch the way his lungs strained a little for air—but the laugh was good enough to take Bucky’s own breath away, as well as the whiff of Steve’s clove gum as he leaned in to take one of the bags from Bucky’s flesh arm, pecking him on the cheek as he did. 

“I missed you, too,” Steve said. He went back into the apartment, still breathing a little too hard, and Bucky trailed after him. He put the rest of the bags on the couch. Steve was barefoot, now, his feet spreading under his increased weight and ankled swollen. The shoes he had been trying to put on were back by the side of the door, a little crooked. 

“What is all this?” Steve asked, poking through the bags. 

“Just some stuff,” Bucky said. He knew that it sounded cagey, but he wanted to hide the urge to care for Steve. He felt too anxious and uncertain of his welcome. “What smells good?” 

“I just was heating up some leftovers,” Steve said, a little sardonic. “Sam said you guys had landed, so I was expecting you hungry.” 

“It smells amazing,” Bucky said and Steve raised his eyebrows. 

“Well, you made it before you left.” 

Bucky flushed, feeling off-balance. “I’ll put this stuff away.”

He felt Steve’s eyes on his back as he went deeper into the apartment, but he took his time. He squirreled the cream into the cabinet in the bathroom, put the clothes in the washing machine. He hated that he felt so uncertain, hated this avoidant tendency in himself. Steve’s body was the one that had changed so much, but Bucky felt like half the time like his center of gravity had shifted even more—away from his own core and into Steve’s, leaving him listing toward him at all times. 

By the time Bucky emerged back into the kitchen, Steve was back at the stove. He was in an unseasonable sweatshirt, now—baggy, but not enough that Bucky couldn’t see the way his middle strained against it. His hip was resting on the counter and he spooned out two servings of the stew. 

Bucky watched him move carefully to set them on the table and then watched him bring the pot over. His fingers itched to take over, but he just sat down. 

Steve lowered himself on the other side of the table slowly and carefully. He really was significantly less mobile now than he had been when Bucky had left. Bucky wanted to ask him about it, wanted a full catalogue of every change and struggle—but that would be unfair to ask anyone, much less Steve. 

Instead, he ate. He was hungry, and one bowl turned into two before he slowed down. Steve was still picking at the first one, though—and that was unusual. Steve’s prodigious appetite had only increased until now. 

He couldn’t help but try and calculate how much he’d gotten down and apparently he wasn’t subtle enough. Steve sighed. 

“There’s just not any room left,” Steve said. “I’ll be hungry again in an hour, but I can’t eat too much at one sitting anymore.” 

“Wow,” Bucky said, before he could think better of it. 

“Right?” Steve said. “Normally I’d say this was proof this baby was a Barnes, since Rogers babies never were this big, but I’ve never met a Barnes that didn’t want me to eat more.” 

“I’m sure she’s not doing it on purpose,” Bucky said and Steve huffed a laugh. 

“Bucky, I know. Relax.” 

There was little Bucky found less relaxing than Steve telling him he should, but he held his tongue. Scooping up the last bit of his stew, he decided against a third serving and got up to do the dishes before Steve could take the initiative. 

Unusually, Steve didn’t fight him on it. He watched Bucky, and Bucky watched him back out of the corner of his eye. One hand was taking listless bites from the soup and the other had settled on the swell of his stomach, accentuating just how much mass it was taking up between him and the chair. 

Bucky felt the weight of questions and he wasn’t sure whose they were—Steve probably wanted to know about the mission. Bucky wanted to know about the pregnancy. They both knew they had things to talk about, the strange uneasiness that had only been growing since they got the shocking news. There was something both comforting and depressing about the ease with which they moved through the things unsaid. “Fuck,” Steve said, out of nowhere. “I have to pee again.” Bucky’s metal hand clattered against the dishes in his hand. He opened his mouth to offer to help him up, but he closed it. Steve heaved himself to his feet with an unsteady sigh, the chair scraping against the floor behind him. When he was most of the way down the hall, Bucky couldn’t help it and he stared after him. 

***

The rest of the night went like that. Steve got up every few minutes, it felt like. He shuffled to get a snack, to go to the bathroom. Every time, Bucky stopped himself from offering to help. Early on in the pregnancy, Bucky had been little more than a nuisance, trying to do everything for Steve—the outrageous novelty of a _baby_ shaking long habit. But Steve had made clear that he neither wanted nor needed that, and Bucky had long-since learned that sometimes being there for someone meant making yourself scarce.

Every time Steve moved, laboriously, Bucky went still. He felt like he was trying to fold himself up and disappear, because he knew he wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding his restless anxiety. 

This was good. Nothing was wrong with the pregnancy. The doctors said Steve was in the picture of health. But pregnancy was hard, and Bucky had some very old patterns of stress around Steve having a hard time. 

Even when Steve sank back down into the couch, a warm comfortable weight against Bucky’s side, Bucky couldn’t relax. He knew Steve would have to stand up again, and he knew that he would have to watch. 

“I think I’m going to turn in early,” Bucky said. “I’m exhausted.” 

Steve’s face softened out of the faint grimace he’d been wearing, looking Bucky over carefully. “You haven’t talked much about the mission.” 

Bucky had basically forgotten about it. Even when it wasn’t happening, he had barely been thinking about it—it was probably unsafe, all told, but it wasn’t a bad way to get over the hurdle of his first time back in the field. 

He knew what to do in this sort of situation, though. He shrugged and averted his eyes. Steve was a hypocrite to his core, and all too eager to comfort Bucky. Whenever Steve had been sick back in Brooklyn, Bucky had come down with something himself just to entice him into a shared stillness. 

“Let’s go to bed,” Steve said, and Bucky felt a burst of affection. He tilted his head to kiss the soft skin underneath Steve’s ear, right where his hair was starting to get long enough to curl. He felt Steve’s chuckle resonate through his skin and Bucky’s lips. Bucky kissed him again, eager for the way Steve leaned into it—it was a small way to take some of the weight, but Bucky would take it. 

The routine of going to bed was quiet and familiar. Even though Steve puffed and moved with the same unnerving care, Bucky felt his tension ease to see him brush his teeth and wash his face. When they crawled into bed together, Steve slipped behind him and wrapped his arms around Bucky, his stomach a heavy pressure in the small of Bucky's back. Steve hooked a thigh over Bucky's and arched his back, and Bucky's body perked up hopefully before he shifted and settled back down. He was stretching. Bucky was happy to be a body pillow for him, if he needed it. 

He could feel the shallow rise and fall of Steve's breath, and marked the moment that he fell into sleep. Bucky drifted, but he never managed to really go under. When after an hour, Steve grumbled awake and made his uneasy way to the bathroom, Bucky held his breath until he returned. His body made a warm weight in the bed and Bucky let himself move into it—gravity, after all. He was in orbit around Steve. 

The second time Steve got up, Bucky found himself enjoying the absence because of the promise of Steve returning—the soft noises he would make to get comfortable, the unselfconscious way he'd shift and move Bucky around. He wasn't sure if Steve realized Bucky was more or less awake, and he wanted to keep it that way—it was easier for Bucky to enjoy it when he could let himself pretend he didn't know what he was doing. 

A crash from the bathroom shattered that ease. 

Bucky was at Steve's side in an instant, heart pounding. He smelled the bite of blood and there was a fierce pain in his foot as he stepped on something sharp. The porcelain sink had cracked to pieces in Steve's hand and he was leaning against the wall, breathing hard. 

"Steve," Bucky said, his voice low and urgent. "Sweetheart—"

"I tripped," Steve said, his voice hoarse. "I was just trying to take a piss, and I tripped." 

Bucky didn't ask any more questions—he could imagine the shape of it. Steve was just as strong as he ever was and if he reacted reflexively to catch his balance, he could easily break the sink. Bucky was businesslike as he steered Steve to sit on the toilet, the cut on his own foot aching somewhere underneath his consciousness. His heart was pounding, but his hands were steady as he took Steve's hand between both of his own. He used the metal hand to unfold the clench of Steve's fist and drew out the shard of porcelain. It wasn't a bad cut—porcelain didn't get as sharp as glass. He tossed it in the part of the sink that was left and before he could stop himself, bent down to kiss the already healing cut. 

Steve's pulse pushed one last sluggish stream of blood. The metallic taste of it was enough to get Bucky's head spinning. But he put Steve's hand down on his thigh, palm up, and started pushing away the rest of the debris. 

The bathroom was dark. They had heavy-duty blackout curtains and no electronics that gave off light, or neither of them would be able to sleep a wink, but Bucky's eyes were good enough to make out the shine of the faucet, the shape of Steve's shoulders hunched up and tense. He could hear both their hearts beating and their shared rapid breathing. He focused on the task that needed doing. 

He thought he got up anything sharp off the floor, but Steve made no effort to stand. When Bucky looked up, Steve was staring down at him—even he couldn't read what was on his face in the gloom. Maybe he couldn't at high noon, but the darkness certainly wasn't helping. 

"Don't stand up yet," Bucky said. He kept his voice in his lieutenant register. He could get away with a lot of caring on the battlefield. He grabbed the slip-on shoes that he bought earlier that day from the closet and gently put them on Steve's feet. If he missed anything, Steve would not appreciate dealing with a foot injury on top of everything. 

"When did you get these?" Steve said. His heart was still going fast, but his voice was soft. Bucky stiffened, uncertain. 

"I don't know," he said, and then corrected himself. "Today, when I was out." 

"Thank you," Steve said. When Bucky didn't respond, Steve reached out and cupped Bucky's cheek, drawing his face up to meet his eyes. Steve's belly was between them. Bucky was close enough to it that he could feel the heat rising off of Steve's skin. Bucky lipped his lips, helpless, and Steve stroked his thumb over Bucky's jawline. "I mean it. Thank you." 

"You don't have to—"

"Nobody has ever been able to make me do a single damn thing I didn't want to," Steve said, talking right over Bucky's attempt to deflect. He drew Bucky's face in until his other cheek was resting against the swell of Steve's belly. "You're the only person who maybe could, but you've never wanted to. You've never for a second wanted me to be any less than I am. Thank you. And I'm sorry sometimes I forget that." 

Bucky's breath caught in his throat. "Big speech for three in the morning." 

"I've been thinking about it a lot," Steve said. Bucky could hear the sincerity in him. It wasn't an easy truth—there was something tight and strained in Steve's voice, like it was pushing things out past a heavy current. But he said it. Steve was always the bravest person Bucky's ever met. 

"I like when you let me help you," Bucky said. He'd only ever been able to be brave as an echo of Steve, but he was pretty good at that. He shifted so he could press his lips against the swell of Steve's belly. Their daughter was in there, he knew that—but it felt somehow insignificant against the enormity of Steve himself. Bucky brought his hand up to cup the swell of Steve's belly, stroking the skin. It was firm, solid. Even now, Steve's softness was only on his edges, and this was his core. 

Steve stroked Bucky's hair. Bucky didn't want to move. When Steve opened his mouth to take a quick breath before speaking, he had to resist the urge to reach up and clap his hand over him, keep the moment how it was. 

"Well," Steve said. His voice had gentled, with an edge of rueful humor. "I still have to pee." 

"I can help with that," Bucky said. Steve chuckled and gently tugged Bucky's hair. Bucky opened his mouth to dig his teeth into Steve's skin, just enough to retaliate in kind. 

Steve didn't speak, though. Instead, he tugged Bucky gently away and coaxed him up. He let Bucky help him stand. Bucky's foot ached, but he ignored it—he would deal with hell of a lot more pain for the opportunity to help Steve to his feet. He slipped his arm around Steve's waist and held him, letting his fingers sneak underneath the fold of his belly, rubbing gently against the faint indentation from his boxers. He let Steve lean on him, and could scarcely breathe for the quiet gift of this. 

When Steve finished, he shook himself off and Bucky got greedy—he reached out and gently tucked Steve back into his boxers, pulling them back into place underneath the swell of his stomach. Steve washed his hands in the bathtub faucet, Bucky passing him the soap; the cut was already a pink line. He healed even faster now. 

"Thank you," Steve said again, as they slowly walked back to bed. He kicked off the shoes and Bucky got back on his knees to help. He pressed a kiss to his stomach, open-mouthed. Steve smiled and used the hem of his shirt to rub Bucky's cheek. 

"I got you a little bloody," Steve said, in explanation. 

"I love you," Bucky said, and Steve rolled his eyes as he drew him up for a kiss.


End file.
